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i own a 2000 323i, it has 270,000km. i bought it beginning of summer and have been doing all maintenance myself, as any proper maxbimmer member should. anyhow, i noticed a certain noise coming from my engine compartment after my last oil change (unrelated), which was roughly 5k ago. judging by the noise, i figured it was an exhaust leak and let it slide until today when i had my car back up on the lift. started the car up and found a leak, but the noise i was hearing all along was coming from my transmission right at the torque converter.

*will post my own; clearer sounding video* here is a video of the sound. try to hear through the higher noise of the engine and listen for the lower chugging noise. thats the sound i am hearing from the converter.

like i said, ive been driving with the dirty noise all along, and the car works. i havent felt anything out of the ordinary when the car shifts gears. i notice the gears shifting, no slippage either. as stated previously, my car is used and has seen a lot of road. changing my transmission fluid has been on my list to do, and im not quite sure if its ever been done. can this sound be caused due to low/old fluid in the transmission?i worry that i change the tranny fluid and still have a bad transmission, the money spent on fluid could have been put to a new tranny and/or converter.i checked the bolts to the flexplate, they seem to be tight. the video above states that the problem was fixed after the bolts were tightened. anyone have a torque setting for these bolts? are there any recommended places to pick a converter up, maybe even a transmission?

you can only imagine the amount of questions i have. any helpful insight would be greatly appreciated, especially costs. i plan to take it to a few tranny shops on my day off wednesday. id hate to have to sell my baby

Time for 5spd swap! Seriously...Any quality rebuild with be in the $2500+ range. Used one with install is about $1500, but you never know how long it will last. Low milage 5 speed swap is about $1000 in parts, i have one with 78K right now, just pulled out last week!

I'd go with Eurostyle's recommendation. I blew my auto tranny in my previous '99 328i. Same unity you have (GM Hydra-matic 4L30-E). Biggest piece of shit to ever go into a BMW (hence the change to ZF in '01). It'll cost you almost $2g to rebuild it (they're weak as hell).

If you still insist on it, I had my done at Lawrence Transmission in Rexdale:

^^what i like most about driving standard, other than the actual feeling you get of driving it, is that when you do a clutch job, if you replace the PP and throwout bearing, most of the potential problems with the trans will be addressed. I'm not saying its impossible for a manual to fail, but its less likely. Realistically, most cars only get 1 clutch job in their life, and a clutch job is rarely over 700$ for a single clutch OEM type deal.

took it to a bmw auto-tranny shop today, real nice place. the guy was busy so ill be taking it in for its inspection tomorrow. he seems to think its the pump, judging by the sound and the fact that the car drives fine.